Man Sentenced for Role in Girlfriend's Death Following Orange County Fair

COSTA MESA, CA — They were headed home from the Orange County Fair. The driver, under the influence, failed to stop when his girlfriend tumbled out of his pickup truck. She was fatally run over by multiple vehicles on Katella Road. The driver, Friday, was sentenced to a year in jail for failing to stop and lend aid.

Nicholas Lawrence Todd, 36, of Brea, was also was placed on three years of formal probation and ordered to perform 200 hours of community service.

"Who knows what could have happened if he had stopped the vehicle" right away and called authorities, Orange County Superior Court Judge Michael Cassidy said.
Todd was convicted Aug. 3 of hit-and-run with permanent and serious injury, a felony, and a misdemeanor count of driving under the influence of alcohol.

Todd and his 30-year-old girlfriend, Desiree Moriel, were en route home from the Orange County Fair when an argument erupted while they were traveling on the Orange (57) Freeway, just north of Katella Avenue, before midnight on July 27, 2013.

According to Deputy District Attorney Mark Birney, the defendant said the argument was over a woman he had been talking to earlier. The two had been dating for about six weeks at the time, according to the victim's family.

During the argument, the passenger side door of the Chevrolet Silverado opened somehow, Birney said. Witnesses told police they saw the victim's legs briefly dragging along before she tumbled out of the vehicle altogether and was "run over by multiple northbound vehicles at freeway speed," the prosecutor said.

Todd continued driving and called a friend and his brother, Birney said. When he arrived home, he dialed 911, according to the prosecutor.

Todd and Moriel had been drinking, and it was unclear whether she jumped or fell, Birney said, but the prosecutor said he suspects the victim fell.

The victim's father said she was "the middle child ... and pretty much the middle of my life -- the center of all that I am and everything I've tried to do."

Rito Moriel was so overcome with emotion that a family member stepped in to read his statement to Cassidy.

"She had this kind of one-on-one relationship with everyone," Moriel said of his daughter, whose hobbies included a "vintage tennis shoe collection" and "couponing."

She was so adept at collecting coupons that "she had to turn her closet into a pantry" to store all of the discounted or free items she received, her father said.
"It seems as though whatever was being said in that vehicle was threatening to Desiree," he said. "His desire to be right and hold Desiree against her request, until he deemed it right, cost Desiree her life."

Her father said he believes "she was taunted out of his truck and then left there alone to be hit by ... other vehicles."

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